None widget lovers turn the page now. This entry will bore you to death. .
Friday was the culmination of 3 days of work, well sort of. I can't remember where exactly but some time in January it became apparent to me that the engine bilge pump was not working, nor for that matter was the deck wash, which used the same Jabsco pump mounted on the front of the engine. The concept of having a spare bilge pump was important to me, and attached to an engine, its use in a moment of crisis could prove invaluable. In a crisis I might not have to man a bilge pump but rather let the engine do the job. All I needed to do was order a new impellor, (that’s the rubber paddle wheel inside that makes it work). All pretty straight forward, or so I thought.
I decided Las Palmas was the place to order a new impellor. A week's wait in harbour would be fine. Well after a wait of two weeks (next day delivery Spanish style), I was €100 poorer for the acquisition of two impellors.
Last Monday I finally took in my laundry which had been intermittently rained on all weekend. By Wednesday my jeans were trashed again, as I wrestled with the snake like oily hose from the bilges. I was stumped. The new impellor was fitted, I was getting intermittent fresh sea water from the deck wash but no bilge water at all. After working with oily bilge water I was not a pretty site but much to my friend Martin's credit I had some Austrian brain power on the case. We isolated one problem to a blocked outlet hose, however, we were still suffering inconsistent flow from the deck wash and still no bilge water at all.
The process of solving the problem came in the form of a lucky accident. Pictured above is the valve which used to divert the flow of water from a sea cock out through the hull, (the deck wash sea water intake), and the bilges. In the process of isolating the pipes with a bucket of water as the input, I accidentally broke an old fitting. Martin put the question to me simply. Did I need the deck wash? Answer: no. Putting the bilge pump hose directly to the engine pump we were able to get satisfactory through put of bilge water. Well this was all fantastic news, if bad news for the anchorage. The bilge pump was working and I had a use for the sea water intake. I was going to re-direct it to the galley sink. Something I had always want to do but never gathered the courage to tackle the oily mess around the diesel engine, bilges, hoses and valves for sea water. Martin's intervention had saved the day and his jeans looked in remarkably better shape than mine.
The next day I bought and installed a sea water pump for the galley. An easy job as I was able to get all the fittings and hose pipes in the Marina chandlery shop. So uncharacteristically I am going on here add nausea and ad infinitim but I thought people might like to know what I was actually up to rather than the haiku like brevity of my usual entry. Bring on Olivier's party and the story of Calmis. . .